


Tabula Rasa

by Ksue



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-23 00:51:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6099462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ksue/pseuds/Ksue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose got to spend her life with the Doctor. But the human mind is a fragile thing, and the years catch up with her. </p><p>Written for Timepetals Prompts on Tumblr. Prompt: Memory Loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tabula Rasa

**Author's Note:**

> Doomsday never happened. 
> 
> Also, I'm sorry. I really don't know where this came from. It just happened. I hate myself a bit for writing it.

Rose Tyler forgot the Doctor.

He knew it could happen, of course. He knew humans and their propensity to forget, even without a disease ravaging their brain. And though it crept upon them slowly, though he had plenty of warning, it still took him quite by surprise.

He never saw her age. To him, Rose was still the bright young woman that first ran into his TARDIS. He didn’t pay attention to her age the way she did. He saw her fussing in the mirror, pulling the skin around her eyes taut, trying to settle her face into an expression that eased her laugh lines, and buying all the blonde hair dye she could find during their Tesco runs, but he never noticed it himself. So when she started to forget, he simply put it down to her humanness. He thought they had more time.

First, she forgot what planet they were on. It was an easy thing to forget, he’d rationalized. They visited so many. Then it was a story from their past adventures. Again, they’d had so many he could hardly fault her. He didn’t even remember every single adventure he’d ever had.

But then she started to forget other things. She’d see a picture of Mickey and ask who he was, or she’d ask why she dreamed of a man in a leather jacket.

And then there was the incident on Nabia Prime. Rose was sixty-seven years old by then, but still spry. Not nearly as fragile as other humans, the Doctor was proud to say. They went to the market, weaving their way through stalls draped in brightly colored fabrics and among the people of the planet; a telepathic race with amethyst colored skin and no mouths. The Doctor drifted away to buy Rose something special, thinking nothing of their separation. They did it often.

He didn’t know anything was wrong until the screams started. On a silent planet, screams could carry a great distance. He ran as fast as he could, following the sound until he found Rose huddled in a corner, her hands clapped over her ears, tears streaming down her face.

“Rose, what’s wrong?” he asked, pulling her hands away and gathering her in his arms. “Love, tell me.”

She’d gotten lost. She couldn’t remember where she was or how she got there, she only knew that the Doctor was not with her. He carried her back to the TARDIS, put her to bed, and spent the entire night curled around her, listening to the steady beat of her heart.

The Doctor wrote it off as a one-time occurrence, but it wasn’t. After the second time, he could no longer stand the thought of causing Rose such terror. And so, he parked the TARDIS on Earth, in the gardens of the little cottage that Jackie’s second husband had bought for them. Her husband had since passed, but Jackie was there. After he tucked Rose into bed, he sat down with a cup of tea, and delivered the news.

“She’s forgetting things, Jackie,” he said, staring into the brew. Jackie nodded.

“Happened to her grandad, too,” she said, as though it helped. “What’ll you do?”

“We’ll stay here, if that’s alright. I can’t risk taking her travelling anymore.”

“We? So you won’t leave her?” Jackie’s voice was gentle, but it cause a burning rage the Doctor hadn’t felt in a long time.

“I would never,” he hissed. “She is my wife, in all the ways that matter. I won’t just swan off now that she can’t live the life we started with.”

“I know,” Jackie soothed, laying a hand over his. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply.”

The Doctor deflated, his shoulders sagging as tears burned his eyes. Jackie tutted and poured him more tea.

“I will have to go some,” he whispered. “I can’t leave the universe unattended entirely. If there were more Time Lords…”

“I know, Doctor. And she’ll be cross if she finds out you even thought of it.”

For a time, things went well. Being bound to earth, surrounded by the familiar, seemed to help. He and Rose traded exploring worlds and planets for exploring England. The crowds bothered her sometimes, and the comments about how sweet it was for him to take his grandmother out bothered the Doctor, so they mostly stuck to quiet towns and sleepy villages. But he was with her, and it was enough.

The Doctor rarely left Rose’s side, and when he had to, Jackie was there. She was getting on too, and he worried about her, but she insisted that they were fine. Until they weren’t. Until the Doctor found trouble on Curie 3 and the TARDIS was damaged. It brought him back three months late.

“Rose?” he shouted, running into the house. He checked the kitchen first, but she wasn’t there. Then their room, then Jackie’s. “Rose!”

There was no one there. He tried to trace the necklace he’d given her when it all began, the one with a tracking device in it, but it led him straight back to their room. He sank onto the bed, his head in his hands, until he heard a car door shut.

Jackie was toddling up the walk as a cab pulled away.

“Where is she?” the Doctor shouted. Jackie started, nearly lost her footing, and then she burst into tears.

“Where were you?” she sobbed, beating at his chest. “You were supposed to be back by tea! But you were gone three bloody months!”

“Where is she, Jackie?” he demanded.

Jackie sniffed, and wiped her eyes. “She got worse. She panicked when you disappeared, and she got worse. I couldn’t keep up with her. The police found her wandering barefoot in her nightgown, three towns over! She’s in a home, now. I tried to put it off, hoping you’d be back, but then I couldn’t anymore.”

Without a word, the Doctor strode back to the TARDIS. Inside, he pounded on the console.

“What bloody good are you!” he shouted at the time rotor. He raged until he cried, great heaving sobs that echoed through the endless corridors.

When he’d composed himself, he went to see her. He didn’t bother explaining that no, he wasn’t her son, or her grandson, he was her husband. He didn’t engage with the staff at all, just followed them to his love.

She was sitting in a chair, staring out the window. She was gorgeous as ever, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He held his breath as the nurse introduced him.

“Rose? You have a visitor,” the nurse said, crouching down by Rose’s chair. The Doctor prayed to whatever deity would hear him that she remembered.

“Doctor!” her eyes lit up and he sagged in relief.

“No, Rose…” the nurse started.

“She’s right,” the Doctor choked out as Rose slapped at the nurse’s hands, standing as quickly as she was able. The Doctor met her halfway, pulling her into a bone crushing hug. He peppered kisses across her face as the nurse bowed out.

“Where were you?” Rose asked, clinging to him tightly.

“I’m sorry. I got stuck, the TARDIS was injured. I should have waited until she was healed, but I didn’t want to…”

“What’s the TARDIS?” Rose asked, pulling back and staring at him like he was speaking another language. He opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it.

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I’m here now.”

They wouldn’t let him take Rose home, no matter what the psychic paper said, and they wouldn’t let him move in. So the Doctor settled for visiting every day, from the moment he they allowed him in in the mornings, to the moment they made him leave. Instead of taking Rose on adventures, he read to her. She started to have more bad days than good, but every day she remembered him.

Until she didn’t.

“Rose? You have a visitor,” the nurse said, as she did every morning. Rose glanced up from the book she was reading, but her eyes didn’t light or linger.

“Another doctor? I’m not sick, I feel fine!”

The Doctor didn’t know his heart could break into that many pieces.

He continued to visit her every day, though she no longer recognized him. Her health declined rapidly, and it was all he and Jackie could do to stay strong. He began to tape pictures of their travels all around the room, not in hopes that she would remember, but in hopes that they would offer her some measure of comfort. He never knew if they did or not.

The nurses said she didn’t have much time left. The irony was not lost on him.

Finally, they let him stay the night, on a cot near her bed. He watched her sleeping, her silver hair shining in the twilight. She shifted, waking slowly.

As soon as he saw her eyes, he knew.

“Doctor?” she croaked. He couldn’t stop the tears as he buried his face in her stomach.

“Rose, oh God, Rose,” he sobbed.

“I’m dying?” she asked. He moved to kiss her, pecking at her lips, tasting the salt of his own tears.

“Shhh,” he soothed.

“Doctor,” she insisted. He looked at her, drinking in those whiskey colored eyes. In all their years together, those hadn’t changed a bit.

“Rose.”

She took his hand, threading their fingers together.

“I’m so glad I met you. And I suppose, if it’s my last chance to say it…I love you. So very much.”

“Oh Rose, I love you too.”

He climbed into the bed, carefully curling himself around her, stroking her hair as she fell asleep again. He followed close behind, his exhaustion finally winning out.

When he woke in the morning, she was gone.

They gave him her wedding ring, the only piece of jewelry they hadn’t made her take off long ago. He slipped it onto his pinky finger, vowing to never take it off. Not in that regeneration, and not in the next.

He would carry their memories for her.


End file.
